Yello Club recently opened in Goochland, and offers pickleball and tennis courts and programming. (Photos courtesy Yello Club)
Looking to tap into demand for court time at a nearby park, a small racquet sports facility has opened in Goochland County.
Yello Club, which features both tennis and pickleball courts, is now fully open at 40 Plaza Drive in eastern Goochland.
The 17,000-square-foot indoor facility is near the Food Lion-anchored Broad View Shopping Center and houses a full-sized tennis court, a small tennis court intended for children’s instruction and two full-sized pickleball courts.
The facility aims to capitalize on the demand for pickleball at the nearby Pouncey Tract Park in Henrico, which is about a 10-minute drive away and tends to have busy courts, according to Lauren Giedgowd, who is part of the Yello Club management team.
She added Yello Club is also trying to set itself apart from local competitors with an emphasis on being a membership-oriented experience and making lessons a big part of the operation.
“We’re more focused on being a private training facility and private court rentals,” Giedgowd said “Because it’s more of a private, smaller-community feel we’re able to give our members private access codes.”
Yello Club offers tennis lessons and pickleball lessons for adults and kids, as well as a tennis summer camp.
The facility’s two-tiered pickleball membership program costs $55 and $105 per month. Its tennis membership is $10 a month.
An hour-long private pickleball lesson is $70. An hour-long private tennis lesson is $55. Yello Club offers a range of lesson packages, semi-private and group instruction and more for both sports.
In addition to tennis and pickleball courts, Yello Club has a pro shop in its 17,000-square-foot facility.
Yello Club is owned by Vandana Murali, the facility’s head coach and an instructor with a professional tennis background.
Giedgowd declined to share the investment made to build and equip the facility, which was purpose-built for Yello Club. The 1.2-acre property where the facility is located was purchased by an LLC tied to Murali for $225,000 in 2020, per online county records.
The facility features a pro shop, and there are plans to add a simulator for virtual pickleball and tennis play, Giedgowd said.
Yello Club opened its pickleball courts in mid-July. The facility opened for tennis in April.
Yello Club is one of a growing number of indoor, privately owned pickleball venues to open in the region amid the sport’s increased popularity in recent years. Performance Pickleball opened at Regency in western Henrico late last year. Bangers and Dinks opened in Chesterfield last summer.
This is a timely addition, as the pickleball community in the far West End has been underserved for years. Pouncey Tract Park has always struggled to meet demand, first with four courts and then twelve. With their soon-to-be-completed expansion to twenty-four courts Henrico will finally be ahead of the curve again – for a short while at least. Pickleball was once (incorrectly, derisively) seen as a sport for the AARP crowd, but now the 30-and-under crowd are coming to the game in droves. It’s a VERY physical game when played at an advanced level, and far more social and accessible… Read more »
The economics of a tennis court versus additional pickleball courts surprises me, since you can fit 4 pickleball courts on 1 tennis court. That’s potentially 16 paying customer versus 4!
It’s actually 2 pickleball courts per tennis court.